Sense and Sensibility: (Starbooks Classics Editions)

ISBN-10: 1495977021
ISBN-13: 9781495977022
Series: Sense and Sensibility
Pages: 596
Language: English
Published: 2014-02-17
Author: Jane Austen

Description

Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, and was her first published work when it appeared in 1811 under the pseudonym "A Lady". A work of romantic fiction, better known as a comedy of manners, Sense and Sensibility is set in southwest England, London and Kent between 1792 and 1797, and portrays the life and loves of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. The novel follows the young ladies to their new home, a meagre cottage on a distant relative's property, where they experience love, romance and heartbreak. The philosophical resolution of the novel is ambiguous: the reader must decide whether sense and sensibility have truly merged. Title Jane Austen wrote the first draft of the novel in the form of a novel-in-letters (epistolary form) sometime around 1795 when she was about 19 years old, and gave it the title Elinor and Marianne. She later changed the form to a narrative and the title to Sense and Sensibility. By changing the title, Austen added "philosophical depth" to what began as a sketch of two characters. The title of the book, and that of her next published novel, Pride and Prejudice (1813), may be suggestive of political conflicts of the 1790s. Plot discussion Philosophical Resolution Austen biographer Claire Tomalin argues that Sense and Sensibility has a "wobble in its approach," which developed because Austen, in the course of writing the novel, gradually became less certain about whether sense or sensibility should triumph. Austen characterises Marianne as a sweet lady with attractive qualities: intelligence, musical talent, frankness, and the capacity to love deeply. She also acknowledges that Willoughby, with all his faults, continues to love and, in some measure, appreciate Marianne. For these reasons, some readers find Marianne's ultimate marriage to Colonel Brandon an unsatisfactory ending. Other interpretations, however, have argued that Austen's intention was not to debate the superior value of either sense or sensibility in good judgement, but rather to demonstrate that both are equally as important but must be applied with good balance to one another. Publication In 1811, Thomas Egerton of the Military Library publishing house in London accepted the manuscript for publication, in three volumes. Austen paid for the book to be published and paid the publisher a commission on sales. The cost of publication was more than a third of Austen's annual household income of £460 (about £15,000 in 2008 currency). She made a profit of £140 (almost £5,000 in 2008 currency) on the first edition, which sold all 750 printed copies by July 1813. A second edition was advertised in October 1813. Adaptations The book has been adapted for film and television a number of times, including a 1981 serial for TV directed by Rodney Bennett; a 1995 movie adapted by Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee; a version in Tamil called Kandukondain Kandukondain, released in 2000, starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan; and a 2008 TV series on BBC adapted by Andrew Davies and directed by John Alexander. Sense & Sensibility, The Musical (book and lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow and music by Neal Hampton) received its world premier by the Denver Center Theatre Company in April 2013 staged by Tony-nominated director Marcia Milgrom Dodge.